Dog River Traverse Hike

Overview

This Dog River Trail #675 is well known as a mountain biker's trail and is shunned by many hiking purists. However, the mountain bikers have done a great job at maintaining the trail, and hikers are welcome here. Since there are now so many biking options in the area, the cyclists are more dispersed and this trail gets much less damage than its earlier years. When other trails are busy in the summer and fall, this hike is, for the most part, an exercise in solitude. The route offers a diverse arboreal variety that includes alders, larches, cedars, Douglas-firs, hemlocks, and stately ponderosa pines. Views of Mount Hood are exceptional, with fall hiking providing spectacular swaths of larches and vine maple. Although this can be done as an out-and-back, this trip is best done as a shuttle or hike and bike, leaving a second vehicle or bike at the higher elevation Zigzag Trailhead, and starting the hike from the lower Dog River Trailhead. Both are located on Highway 35. At the Dog River Trailhead, there’s a sign about the 1980 flood of the East Fork Hood River and a plaque stating that the trail is maintained by the Live Wire Riders. The trail drops down to the right past a gate on an abandoned road that runs up along Puppy Creek. Walk up the road bed under a canopy of big-leaf maple, cottonwood, cedar, Douglas-fir, and grand fir. The road bends up to the left at a trail sign for the Dog River Trail #675, which turns off into the woods. Pass across Puppy Creek on a footbridge, and make two switchbacks up. The trail then traverses in Douglas-fir and oak woods with wild rose, snowberry, ocean spray, thimbleberry, and vine maple in the understory. A sign to the left denotes you're hiking right along the national forest boundary. You'll pass a couple of large Douglas-firs and ponderosa pines before the trail crosses a gully and enters a more open area of ocean spray, oak, ponderosa and Douglas-fir. Reenter the forest, and then walk across an open oak and manzanita slope. The path crosses another gully, and you'll s

Trail Stats

Photos

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